Chuck, what do you think of the federal government’s forcing health care on all of us? I’m concerned for the uninsured, but the risks of mandated health care seem to outweigh its benefits. – “Concerned in Connecticut”

Though I have concern that every American citizen has affordable health care, too, I have grave concerns about the opinion that the federal government holds the true solution.

History shows that whenever government oversees personal welfare (such as with Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and Social Security), the program is inept, broken, intrusive, impersonalized, oppressive or often bankrupt.

It is no coincidence that the Congressional Budget Office recently released updated figures revealing how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, will cost twice as much as the original price tag, from $900 billion to $1.76 trillion between now and 2022.

Outside of the federal government’s controlling our health, any junior certified public accountant knows that the last thing our flailing economy needs is another entitlement. There’s a reason the majority of the states in our union – 26, to be exact – have defied the legality of federally mandated health care and are among those fighting against its enforcement right now before the Supreme Court.

That is why many of America’s Founding Fathers shared a sentiment that can be summarized in this statement: “That government is best which governs least.”

Two perilous previews of state-mandated health care have come to my attention recently.

Veteran journalist Bob Unruh of WND reported just a few weeks ago: “In what is being seen as a preview of a fully implemented Obamacare, government officials in Michigan are demanding that a 9-year-old child follow standard procedure and take a dangerous course of cancer medications that can cause additional cancer – even though the boy has had three scans indicating an absence of the disease.”

Unruh added that despite the fact that Michigan’s lower courts twice have ruled against the demands of state agency officials, the Home School Legal Defense Association’s chairman, Michael P. Farris, “confirmed … that the Michigan Department of Human Services has filed suit to force the parents to administer the chemicals to their son even though he’s been clean of cancer on scans over the past year.”

Health Impact News Daily added: “Ken and Erin Stieler are the mom and dad of Jacob – who has been cancer-free since his PET scan in early July. He has had two clean PET scans since then – the most recent in January. Despite all of this, the Michigan Department of Human Services continues to attempt to prosecute this family for medical neglect. If they succeed they will force Jacob to resume chemotherapy despite the fact that the drugs in question are not FDA approved (either for children in general or for this particular cancer). Moreover, these drugs do not promise anything close to a guaranteed cure. And, the FDA requires the drug manufacturers to disclose that these drugs cause new cancers to form, heart disease in children, failure to sexually mature, and many other serious side effects in some cases.”

And if you think the federal government never will tell you what to do with your child’s health care, then consider passages in the Affordable Care Act under the heading “home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children,” which would provide (via grants to states) for home visitation programs by government agents to educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.

Imagine how that health-care provision might play out as state officials walk into your home invoking their values and beliefs upon your parenting and children.

Government needs less of a role in running our lives and our children’s lives and more of a role in supporting parents’ decisions for their own children. Children belong to their parents, not to the government. And the parents ought to have the right and governmental support to parent them without federal mandates, education or intervention in our homes or health.

I don’t care how this presidential administration or the Supreme Court bends the commerce clause of the Constitution; state-mandated health care is bad medicine for Americans’ health, U.S. households and the economy.

As difficult as it would be, we need government officials and a federal government that shifts health care back to the free market, personal responsibility and local and community care for one another.

For a more holistic medical approach, Gena and I recommend Sierra Integrative Medical Center in Reno, Nev. The people there are pioneers in integrative medicine. They blend the best of conventional medicine with the best alternative therapies.